


The Fire and the Flames

by Ashr



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Character Death, Future Hank/ Connor relationship, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:49:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24573346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashr/pseuds/Ashr
Summary: When the android revolution had turned into a bloodbath, it was only inevitable that the humans would strike back hard. Hank just hadn't expected Connor to be inside the hideout when it had been blown sky high.This chapter is fairly PG-rated save for cursing and mentions of canon character deaths. Future chapters will be explicit.
Relationships: Hank Anderson/Connor
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	The Fire and the Flames

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittlexOwl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittlexOwl/gifts).



Even from where he was stood well on the other side of the complex, Hank felt the ground shudder beneath his feet. He'd known this moment was going to come from the second the uprising turned violent, he'd just hoped that both he and his partner had been on the right side of things when did.

At first the android revolution had been peaceful; sure there had been the odd incident with deviants assaulting and murdering their owners, but they had been isolated cases in what had turned out to be extraordinary circumstances. Hell, if he'd have been being used as an ashtray and beaten with a baseball bat for months on end, he'd have stabbed the fucker on the delivering end of it too. The protests and marches had been one thing, but when Markus and that woman glued to his side had started ransacking the city and hurting good, innocent people, Hank knew it would only be a matter of time before drastic action was taken. He just hadn't expected it to come so soon.

He hadn't expected them to detonate the android hideout while Connor was still undercover inside.

Strong hands on his shoulders grabbed him, hauling him back and down to the ground. He hadn't even realised he'd been trying to run, hadn't realised that the scream echoing around them was coming from his own throat. Ben Collins' hand clamped down over Hank's mouth, silencing his distraught cries, his own voice rough as he dragged Hank back and around the corner of the building they had been scouting from. “Shut _up_ , Hank! They're gonna hear you!”

Hank's protests were muffled around the hand clamped over his mouth; he might have had experience on his side, but Ben had size and weight on his, and he held the struggling lieutenant back with embarrassing ease. Hank and Connor had been working together for a while now and Ben knew they had been close, but he hadn't expected this level of grief from his commander. It was just a lump of plastic that could speak, after all. “Calm down, Lieutenant! There's gonna be questions, and you don't want the higher ups thinkin' you've been siding with _them_.”  
  
Hank knew that Ben was right, but he'd be damned before he'd admit it out loud. The sad truth was, before Markus had turned the revolution violent, Hank had been beginning to understand the android's point. He still hated them for the most part, of course he did, but if they had broken their programming and become capable of independent thought and emotion, then surely they deserved some rights and protections too. This ideology had only been cemented when Connor had come back from the botched attack on Jericho, saying he'd managed to gain Markus' trust but had become deviant himself in the process.

At first Hank had been frightened, he had to admit. He'd seen first hand what these bastards were capable of once they'd broken free from their programming, and he knew just how brutal Connor could be when it came down to that. The normally goofy idiot could wield a pistol better than any Olympic sharp-shooter and out-wrestle any of those spandex-clad morons on TV. God only knew what he'd be capable of when freed from the CyberLife imposed restraints on him. Still, they'd continued to work together well after then, and Hank had even told Connor to be careful and get out if he had to, before shit went south. Fuck, Hank hated just how much that plastic prick had gotten under his skin.

Calls began to come through on the radio, confirmed reports that the building was destroyed and that clean-up crews were finishing off any survivors that attempted to escape. Hank used the heel of his hand to rub at his eyes, stubbornly fighting back the tears. He couldn't let the others see him so emotional – he knew what was going to happen to any humans that were suspected of siding with the enemy. He felt Collins' hand on his shoulder again and shrugged it off. The detective wouldn't rat him out, Hank knew that, but that didn't mean he wanted to be babied through this either. Connor was... He was gone, and Hank needed to come to terms with that on his own. He didn't have anyone else in his corner, not any more.

Back at the station, they all gathered in Captain Fowler's office for the debriefing. The building had been levelled, and no survivors had made it out. Markus, North and Simon were all confirmed kills, along with hundreds of others, many too badly damaged to ever be identified. Sure there would still be deviants floating around that hadn't been in the building at the time, but they would be rounded up easily enough now the bulk of their army had been decimated. Between that and all the still obedient privately owned ones being handed over for dismantling, it was only a matter of a short amount of time before androids would be extinct. The wasteland outside Detroit would be turned into a massive junkyard for them all to be dumped in, and that was the end of it.

Hank listened to the debriefing in silence, aware of all the glances his colleagues kept giving him. They all knew he'd been working closely with an android partner, many knew that they had become _friends_ , and they also all knew that Connor had been inside the building undercover when the explosives had been detonated. His body hadn't been identified, so he was no doubt one of the ones too badly damaged to be recognisable. Having a five-story building land on your head would do that. Hank wondered what the others thought of him right now. Likely many would be suspicious, wondering if he really had veered off to side with the plastic menace. Maybe a couple had some shred of pity – plastic or not, Connor had still been his partner, and that kind of loss always hurt deeply. A quick glimpse at Gavin and Hank wanted to punch the dick right in the middle of his smug face. How was it possible for one person to radiate such an aura of self-righteousness that it was almost tangible?

After the debriefing, Hank slumped back to his desk. Whether or not Connor had been human, he had still been Hank's partner and he'd still been... not _killed_. Androids couldn't die, after all. He'd been destroyed, and that meant a mountain of paperwork. The coffee in his mug had long gone stone cold but Hank sipped at it anyway, nose crinkling in disgust. Connor had only been his partner for a few months and Hank had spent most of that time actively hating him, but he still hadn't wanted this. He felt those stubborn tears pulling at his eyes again and rubbed at them in frustration, distracted enough to startle slightly when some papers got dropped onto his desk. He looked over the cover sheet, brow knotting in quizzical annoyance. “I need to do a _Damaged Equipment Form?_ For Connor? Are you fucking kidding me?”

Fowler just gave a roll of his shoulder in a non-committal shrug. “It wasn't a person. It was a machine, and it got damaged.” He let out a quiet sigh; he didn't get why Hank was so pissed off and unhappy. Tools got broken all the time, after all. This just happened to be a tool that was human-shaped. He didn't go into mourning the last time he had to replace his toaster. Despite that, it had been a really long day and he couldn't be arsed arguing it out right now. “Look Hank, it's late. Just fill it out, then go home and get some sleep. End of discussion.”

Hank went to argue, but he really couldn't sum up the energy. What difference would it make, anyway? In the relatively short time they had been working together Connor had saved his life more times than he could count, but he wouldn't get a funeral. He wouldn't get a name plaque to honour his memory. Hell, he didn't even get a warning to get out of the fucking building before they blew it sky high.

The pen scratched listlessly across the paper as Hank filled out the form, his mind wandering so far away that he startled again when he finally realised that someone had sat down next to him. “Collins, Christ! Can everyone stop fucking sneaking up on me? Next one that tries it, I'm going to stab them right in the god-damn eye!”  
  
Ben held his hands up, trying to broker some peace. “Easy, Hank. I just...” He sighed softly, a chubby hand reaching up and rubbing the back of his neck. “I know today has really sucked for you. We stopped the war, but... losing a buddy is hard. I get it, I think.”

Hank rolled his eyes, shoving the finished papers away with a disgusted flip of his wrist. “Spare me the girly emotional bullshit. I know you're just glad to have the bot out the office.” The silent moving of Ben's lips at that let Hank know that he was right, and he stood up to dump the form on Fowler's desk before heading home. Ben had never been a bad person – in fact, he was one of the few people in the whole department that Hank had even the tiniest shred of respect for. Didn't mean he wanted to be mothered by him, especially not now. All Hank wanted was to go home.

Apparently he wouldn't even get to do that without a fight, judging by the pitter-patter of Ben's feet behind him. “Jesus, Ben! Would you just give it a break already?” He all but threw the papers down on Fowler's desk, glad the Chief wasn't in his office so he wouldn't have to talk to him, then turned to head to the parking lot.

“Look, Hank. I just...” Ben sighed, half-jogging to keep up with Hank's much longer strides. “Let me give you a ride home, at least? You shouldn't be driving when you're this up-”

Hank turned on him, poking a finger into Ben's broad chest. “Stop it! Look, just stop it. I'm fine. You're fine. We're all fine. Just piss off and leave me alone.”

Ben held up his hands defensively again before brushing away the finger that was poking at him. “You're not fine! You're upset and being a dick, and if you crash going home it'll be me filling out the fucking forms tomorrow. So, stop being a jerk, and let me give you a ride.”

After a long moment Hank let out a frustrated breath and nodded in resigned agreement. “Alright, fine. Just stop flapping your jaw at me like I'm a toddler that scraped their knee. He was... _It_ was just a machine.”  
  
Ben looked utterly unconvinced by that but he was thankfully wise enough to keep his mouth shut as he drove the Lieutenant home to his little bungalow in suburbia. He could tell that Hank was upset and unhappy and he didn't like leaving him alone as he pulled up outside his home, but he knew exactly how well offering to stay with him would go over. Instead he just fidgeted with the steering wheel for a moment as Hank got out of the car. “You've got my number. Call if you need anyth-”

Hank slammed the door of the car shut before Ben could finish and stalked his way to the front door of his home. He stared at it for a long while before unlocking it, stepping inside and closing it again, waiting until he heard the rumble of Ben's car leaving before letting out a breath he didn't realise he'd been holding. He'd never felt so exhausted, so utterly mentally and physically drained, but today was finally over. Thank all the fucking gods. A low wuffing sound alerted him to the fact that Sumo was in the lounge, and as he rounded the corner and flicked on the light, Hank stumbled backwards in shock with strangled cry.

“Welcome home, Lieutenant.” Connor sat on the couch with Sumo's massive head in his lap, petting the St Bernard like there wasn't a single care in the world.

Hank propped himself up against the wall, blue eyes boggled in sheer disbelief as he stared at the android. “Connor? How...? What...? When...? What the FUCK, Connor?”  
  
Brow furrowed slightly in concern, Connor stood up slowly, giving Sumo's dense fur a gentle ruffle as he did. Hank's face had gone completely white, and while he could understand that the Lieutenant would probably feel some surprise at seeing him again, he hadn't expected quite such a response. “I hacked into the DPD radio waves. I heard about the planned explosion. I don't want to be destroyed...” His head tilted like a confused puppy as he tried to understand his Lieutenant's reaction, pacing slowly closer. “I... I'm sorry I came here, Lieutenant. I didn't know where else to go...”  
  
Looking at Connor's face, Hank was suddenly one hundred percent certain of one thing. He really, really didn't want his partner to be destroyed either. Yes he was a machine, yes he had broken programming, but _none_ of that mattered. Hank pushed himself off the wall, closing the gap between them in two long strides before throwing his arms around the slender android, pulling him into a hug that would have crushed anyone with a functioning ribcage. Those stubborn tears finally broke the dam, streaking down his cheeks as he clung to Connor. “You did good. You came here. You came _home_. Fucking hell, Connor...”

Human emotions were something Connor was still learning, still trying to understand, but he knew relief when he saw it. A faint smile crossed his lips as he returned the hug, wrapping his arms around Hank's waist and holding him close. “They think I was destroyed in the explosion. Please don't turn me in. I know my kind are going to be hunted down now. I'll leave, I'll find somewhere to go and hide. Just... Please, Lieutenant...” Connor's brown eyes peered into Hank's blue ones. If Hank wanted to hand him over Connor wouldn't resist, but he had hope that he'd at least be given a head start before Hank made the phone call.

Staring down at him, Hank just shook his head in sheer disbelief. “You think I'd hand you over? Not a fucking chance! You're staying here now. I... I don't know how, but we'll find a way. No one is destroying you, not over my dead body! We'll find a way, we'll make it work.” He held the hug for a few more long moments before pulling away, gripping Connor's face in his broad hands. “Just... Stay here, for now at least. We'll keep you hidden until we work something out.”

Connor nodded slowly, hands shuffling up to instinctively fuss with his tie, brow furrowing slightly when he realised it wasn't there. “Thank you, Lieutenant. Whatever you need doing here, I'll do it. I promise.”

Hank let out another long breath, nodding his head after a moment. “Only thing that really needs doing is keeping Sumo company. Think you can manage that? And... I'm not your Lieutenant any more. Just call me Hank.”

That precious smile crossed Connor's lips again, and he nodded in agreement. “I can definitely do that. Thank you, Hank."

Watching Connor return to the sofa and settle back down next to the massive dog, Hank sighed deeply and rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hands. Well, what an utter nightmare of a day it had been, and it had ended with him harbouring a fugitive android. What the fuck was he – what the fuck were _they_ \- going to do now?


End file.
